We exist in the midst of a flow of phenomena and we’re part of that flow. Everything depends on everything else and everything contains everything else.
Seeing reality in this way, as an infinitely vast net of interconnected phenomena, is to view the world through awakened eyes.
We exist in the midst of a flow of phenomena and we’re part of that flow. Everything depends on everything else and everything contains everything else.
Seeing reality in this way, as an infinitely vast net of interconnected phenomena, is to view the world through awakened eyes.
Anxiety affects how we perceive the world; it can take all of the joy out of life.
We can train ourselves to respond to anxiety and stress by developing the habit of mindfulness, by learning to calm ourselves, by bringing the attention to the breath & body when we’re having a small meltdown. That way, when the bigger stresses arise, we already have a set of skills we can employ.
Mindfulness of breathing is a simple practice; there’s no need for complicated instructions. We simply return to the sensations of breathing gently and gracefully, over and over.
It’s also an incredibly powerful practice. Early Buddhist teachings describe how mindfulness of breathing can take you all the way to full awakening.
Mindful speech is a form of spiritual practice.
The teachings on how we speak to each other are there to open a sense of enquiry. In other words, working out what’s helpful and what’s unhelpful, what causes agitation, stress and suffering, and what alleviates it.
Everything is impermanent, everything arises and passes. Nothing can offer us lasting satisfaction. And there is no fixed, permanent thing called the self, just a number of processes constantly shifting and changing.
Understanding this on a conceptual level isn’t enough; we only liberate ourselves by observing it in our moment-to-moment experience.
We tend to be drawn towards drama. It generates a sense of aliveness but it’s also exhausting.
Mindfulness helps us become disenchanted with our dramas and our reactivity so that we can start to make peace with ourselves.
Early Buddhist teachings encourage us to live a life with intention and not to wander aimlessly, always reacting to our experience.
If our intentions are kind and compassionate, our actions are going to be skilful. They’ll lead us to a liberated, awakened life.
Nothing appears out of nowhere; everything arises out of previous conditions. Everything, no matter how solid it appears to be, is simply process. This is what we call emptiness.
The point of understanding and knowing emptiness is to relieve our distress. Once we truly see emptiness, we no longer have to carry the burden of hostility and dissatisfaction around with us. Instead, we can relax and enjoy our world.
We all carry a burden. Generosity is a practice that lightens our burden.
It helps us to understand that we’re all interconnected with each other and with the Earth. It opens the heart.
We don’t have to feel generous to incline towards generosity, we can just get on with it.
We live in an incredible time for cross-pollination of ideas, including ideas about how to live in this world, with access to more information than ever about religious and spiritual traditions. For anyone looking for a practice, there’s no shortage of options from which to choose a path. However, at some point, if we really want to wake up, it's important to stop window shopping and to start engaging seriously with one practice.
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